Thread by @AynRandPaulRyan

1/ My husband is officially 6 months cancer free, according to last week's bone marrow biopsy.

He had a stem cell transplant for AML last June.

The day he was diagnosed, his white count was 135k. (Normal is between 4k-11k.)

2/He went into respiratory failure, had a heart attack, was put on life support, and as he crashed, I was told his prospects were "not good" by his doctor.

I was told over the phone, because COVID was in full swing on 1/13/21, the day he got sick.

I could not be with him.

3/ To everyone's shock and delight, he woke up 3 days later.

He was in the hospital for 3 weeks, getting his first round of chemo, scared and alone. I was not allowed to be there. Because of COVID.

This was when vaccinations were mostly for people who worked in healthcare.

We spent months and months at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, masks on, terrified of being exposed to COVID by other patients who were equally as terrified of being exposed to COVID by us. All 5 of our kids got their shots/boosters as soon as they could. But stem cell transplants..

5/ ...make it impossible for patients to become inoculated against most anything for about a year after transplant. He is susceptible not only to COVID, but to all childhood diseases (measles, etc). He will have to start getting vaccines against everything this summer.

6/ They did, however, give him 3 COVID shots, just in case they worked. No one really knows. Plus, last week, he received Evusheld, a prophylactic monoclonal antibody given to immunocompromised patients to fight off COVID. fda.gov/news-events/pr…

7/ We are extremely careful. No travel, no visitors. I work from home. My husband would be home from work regardless of COVID for a year after transplant. It takes that long to recover and again, his immune system is like that of a newborn baby. We are careful because we know...

8/ if he gets COVID, because of the lack of ICU beds, he may not get seen at all.

God forbid his cancer comes back and he needs another stem cell transplant. It would be deferred because some people don't want to wear a mask or get a shot.

9/ This is happening all over the country and nobody seems to fucking care.

theatlantic.com/health/archive…

10/ Which brings me to the reason I started writing this in the first place.

Katherine Ripley, 33 year old mother of 2, fought stage 4 breast cancer and won, only to die of pneumonia and sepsis, waiting for a life flight that never came.

spokesman.com/stories/2022/j…

11/ Her father wrote her obituary and said, “There were no beds available, thanks to unvaccinated COVID-19 patients.”

The obituary ended with this: “Please, get vaccinated against COVID-19 – your actions really do affect others.”

12/ "An unvaccinated person between ages 35 and 64 is three times more likely to contract COVID and eight times more likely to be hospitalized than someone who’s vaccinated."

12/ “Get vaccinated, people,” Eiselein said. “If you’re not sure about it, then talk to a doctor. Don’t pay attention to the garbage online from people who don’t know anything.”

13/ If you have a few bucks to spare, please help Katie's husband and two kids. They are going through hell.

And please wear your seatbelt and be careful on ladders, because if you are in an accident, you won't get an ICU bed.

You just won't.

gofundme.com/f/ripley-famil…